When I first heard about Flip, the simple video camera that literally plugs and plays, I realized this is a very unique brand in the digital video market. Unlike most of the digital video cameras it’s extremely simple, inexpensive and handy. It’s so simple, so inexpensive and so easy to use why didn’t someone think of this before? It’s only been around for about 3 years and it’s the number 3 video camera brand out there. Why?– because it was developed around a missing niche in the market.
Unlike Sony and the other major electronics manufactures who are driven by features and technology – more is better syndrome that often leaves most of us in the dark when it comes to both video cams and complex mobile phones, the Flip focused on what people want to do. The company, Pure Digital that created it, was not an electronics company. The founders saw an unmet opportunity in the growing digital video market and had a video camera developed around these unmet needs.
So what was missing in the market? A non professional camera for families and friends who just wanted to capture 30 seconds to 20 minutes of video– shots of their kids birthday party, basketball game or graduation. Something that was simple, small, and easy to use. A camera you could keep with you and pull out with virtually no set up to capture events that mattered without having to “figure it out” every time. And something so simple you can just plug it into your usb port and down load images.
The most important question major brands need to consistently ask about their target customers is what do they want? How do they act? And what experiences are they trying to capture? This is where technology-driven companies that have been in vertical markets a long time get lost in continually making the features more complex, more expensive and more confusing.
The simple but brilliant thinking that went into creating the Flip video camera is what leads to amazing new inventions. By literally taking existing technology and combining it into something simple and functional you can transform markets. Understanding what’s missing and creating a whole new product is often exactly what consumers are looking for.